University of Sussex
Browse

File(s) not publicly available

How clonal are human mitochondria?

journal contribution
posted on 2023-06-07, 20:35 authored by Adam Eyre-WalkerAdam Eyre-Walker, Noel H Smith, John Maynard Smith
Phylogenetic trees constructed using human mitochondrial sequences contain a large number of homoplasies. These are due either to repeated mutation or to recombination between mitochondrial lineages. We show that a tree constructed using synonymous variation in the protein coding sequences of 29 largely complete human mitochondrial molecules contains 22 homoplasies at 32 phylogenetically informative sites. This level of homoplasy is very unlikely if inheritance is clonal, even if we take into account base composition bias. There must either be 'hypervariable' sites or recombination between mitochondria. We present evidence which suggests that hypervariable sites do not exist in our data. It therefore seems likely that recombination has occurred between mitochondrial lineages in humans.

History

Publication status

  • Published

Journal

Proceedings B: Biological Sciences

ISSN

1471-2954

Publisher

Royal Society, The

Issue

1418

Volume

266

Page range

477-483

Pages

7.0

Department affiliated with

  • Evolution, Behaviour and Environment Publications

Full text available

  • No

Peer reviewed?

  • Yes

Legacy Posted Date

2012-02-06

Usage metrics

    University of Sussex (Publications)

    Categories

    No categories selected

    Exports

    RefWorks
    BibTeX
    Ref. manager
    Endnote
    DataCite
    NLM
    DC